A string of knee and hamstring injuries have plagued Torres after his club-record £50million move to the Blues two years ago and seen him lose that side to his game.

But Chelsea boss Rafa Benitez, who brought the forward to English football while at Anfield, insists the club is working hard on the training ground to address the problem.

He said: “The way the team was training, and when we arrived, there was too many games with the same players. It’s not easy, especially for strikers, and we saw these things and we’re trying to prove his [Torres’] strength a little bit.

“It’s a question of time. A lot of the players have a specific programme. You can see that he is a little bit quicker but the problem he had in the last games was [he had played] too many games. I could see the players were tired.

“He can manage it. From day one we have been trying to help him, so hopefully now with Demba [Ba] it will be a hand for him. The main things with players is not what they say, it’s what they do on the pitch. Fernando is trying to improve and do things for the team.”